My journey began in August of 2010 when I found out I was pregnant after just six months of trying. I was stunned that it happened so easily and quickly. We didn’t chart, take my temperature or use any Ovulation Predictor Kits. I simply went off birth control, relaxed, had fun and it happened! My husband and I were so excited. I was already 8 weeks along when I found out, because I’d had some spotting that I thought was my period.

I met my OB in November at 11 weeks, and had an ultrasound. My husband was away for work so he never got to see or hear our baby. I heard the little heart beat and saw the little Peanut moving around. It was magical. I was so happy. I started bleeding a little in December, and of course, I was devastated. I cried on my way to work that morning. I sobbed on the phone to my husband and he told me it was okay, that it was probably nothing, that I had no reason to think the worst. The spotting stopped later that day and I felt better. The next week I started feeling bad. I was crying for no reason and felt very sluggish. I started bleeding again, this time bright red and more consistent, at my mom’s house that night. I sat on a chair in my mom’s bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I said, “Okay,” to my reflection and thought, “I may actually be having a miscarriage, and I need to face that.” My mom took me to the ER the next day. The nurse wheeled me into the ultrasound room and I felt slightly hopeful. Maybe I was worrying for nothing.

The ultrasound showed no baby. We heard no heartbeat. I was so confused, and, of course, the ultrasound tech couldn’t tell me anything. I waited almost an hour, my heart sinking even more with each dragging minute. An ER doctor, whose face I won’t soon forget, came in and said, “There is something in your uterus, but it’s not a baby.” Then he told me I had a molar pregnancy that may possibly contain cancerous cells, and that I had never truly been pregnant with a baby. I said, “No, I may not be pregnant with a baby now, but I WAS. I SAW IT. I HEARD THE HEARTBEAT.” He left and called my OB, who was in surgery. Another hour later, and my OB came in and told me he had said the exact same thing. He saw my baby; he believed me.

I had a D&C two days later and lost 10% of my blood supply. My doctor had to stop the bleeding with methergine to keep me from bleeding out. I was also given pitocin in recovery. At that point, my OB was convinced I had a molar pregnancy. I had to wait until after Christmas to get my test results and fortunately, everything came back as “normal” miscarriage tissue. I got a rhoGam shot for my negative blood, but I did not stop bleeding after my surgery for six months. My doctor kept assuring me it would stop, that I had a rough road and a hard recovery. I had to have more tissue taken out two weeks after my D&C, and I had active contractions with tissue and bleeding around the same time. It was the miscarriage that wouldn’t stop.

My OB tried antibiotics, extra ultrasounds, progesterone, and lots of time, and nothing would stop the bleeding. I lost nearly 10 pounds from stress, and I was already thin to begin with. I could barely eat or sleep. I wasn’t getting pregnant even though my OPKs were turning positive every month. My doctor finally put me on birth control in September of 2011. I went off birth control in December and went to a fertility doctor in January.

The fertility doctor performed an HSG, the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. He did ultrasounds, post-coital tests, and exam after exam. He put me on Dexamethasone and Bromocriptin. He told me that he couldn’t find anything wrong with me and suggested we do a laparoscopic procedure to look for endometriosis. I left devastated. I just wanted someone to fix me; I just wanted to be pregnant, NOW. I got a positive test in March of 2011 and I called my fertility doctor. My hCG blood test was only 13, and he informed me I had experienced a chemical pregnancy; a very early miscarriage. He told me if I continued for several more months and still didn’t get pregnant, we would once again visit the idea of a laparoscopy for endometriosis. I got pregnant again, this time in May 2011, and the fertility doctor sent me back to my OB.

My hormone levels were perfect. My hCG was more than doubling, my progesterone was high. I felt sick and nauseated. We had already seen the gestational sac, a tiny little circle, on an ultrasound. Three days before I went back to my OB, I started bleeding. I cried all weekend long. I was inconsolable. I finally saw my OB and he confirmed it. This was another miscarriage. There was no fetal development and the gestational sac was malformed. I waited and waited, a month to be exact, for the miscarriage to complete on its own. I got my rhoGam shot again and had my hCG tested. My OB found that my hCG was through the roof. First 12,000, then 30,000, then 100,000, then 136,000. It was tripling every other day. I felt so sick, dizzy and terrified. I thought it was molar. I thought I had cancer. I thought I was going to die. Then my OB told me we had to do a D&C, we couldn’t wait any longer. I went into surgery thinking that I would bleed to death, that it would be as bad as the first one, that I wouldn’t stop bleeding again for months and months. I went in thinking that if I didn’t die, then I would have scar tissue and become infertile. Two D&Cs, I kept thinking. Two D&Cs, and no baby. I went to sleep clutching my doctor’s hand, with his arms wrapped around me, swearing to me repeatedly that I would be okay, that I would have a baby, and that he was taking care of me. My heart was broken, my body was wrecked. My husband was devastated and my doctor was sick over it. There was hardly a dry eye in the room.

I woke up and felt better. Good, almost. That D&C wasn’t so bad. The tissue looked normal, from what he thought. We’ll press on. We’ll get better. We’ll get pregnant. That was our motto.

The tests never came back definitive. We still don’t know if it was molar or not. It wasn’t exactly abnormal, but it wasn’t exactly normal. We carried on. I got another positive line in October. Faint, so faint. I’ve seen this all before. My hCG was 9. We retested. My hCG was 11. I started bleeding. I got my rhoGam shot. Again. A vicious cycle, a repeat offender. A habitual aborter.

My doctor put me on baby aspirin. We have never found a reason for any of my losses. No reason and no answers. We are praying every single minute.